Plots & Ploys: Sale of the Century

Some of the biggest names in U.S. real estate are circling Los Angeles for what could be the highest-priced sale of a U.S. office property since before the recession.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s asset-management arm is seeking to sell Century Park, a complex consisting of two 44-story towers and a 12-story building that together total 3.2 million square feet of space in Los Angeles’ Century City.

A first round of bids submitted within the past two weeks attracted top landlords including Hines, Tishman Speyer Properties LP, Douglas Emmett Inc. and Commonwealth Partners, according to real-estate executives familiar with the sales process. J.P. Morgan’s adviser on the sale, Eastdil Secured LLC, has told bidders a second round has a minimum bid of $2.2 billion, those people said.

If that price is hit, it would be the largest sale of an office property in the country since Google Inc. bought its New York headquarters at 111 Eighth Ave. in 2010 for about $1.9 billion.

The towers are a fixture on the scattered Los Angeles skyline, located near Beverly Hills and 10 miles west of downtown.

The complex is home to companies including entertainment-talent giant Creative Artist Agency.

–Eliot Brown

Trump Gets Gusty

When Donald Trump unveiled plans in 2006 for a luxury golf course nestled among the dunes and beach grass of Scotland’s east coast, he found an early ally in Alex Salmond—a proponent of Scottish independence from Britain who saw the development creating jobs and tourist dollars.

Associated Press

Donald Trump during a September television appearance.

How things have changed.

Mr. Salmond, now Scotland’s first minister, is pushing an offshore wind farm 3 miles from Trump International Golf Links as part of a green-energy push, and Mr. Trump isn’t pleased.

“Alex Salmond has a death wish for Scotland, where he wants to put these horrendous industrial wind turbines all over the place,” Mr. Trump said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Trump has launched a legal challenge to the project. His lawyers contend the Scottish government should have held a public inquiry before it granted consent for the offshore portion of the farm.

Mr. Salmond declined to comment. A spokesman said it wasn’t appropriate to comment amid the legal proceedings, though he reiterated the government’s commitment to the development of an offshore wind sector.

–Selina Williams

Back to Basics

After more than a decade of turning around companies, real-estate veteran Glenn Rufrano says he is returning to his roots.

Bloomberg News

Glenn Rufrano, pictured last year.

Most recently chief executive of Cushman & Wakefield, Mr. Rufrano is becoming head of O’Connor Capital Partners, a New York City-based real-estate investment firm. He helped found the firm in 1983 and now is returning as O’Connor’s new chairman and CEO.

Mr. Rufrano also was chief executive of New Plan Excel Realty Trust, which was acquired by Australia-based Centro Properties. When Centro ran into financial trouble, Mr. Rufrano was brought in to turn it around.

Mr. Rufrano was hired to run Cushman & Wakefield in 2010 when the firm was dealing with the commercial-real-estate slump caused by the downturn. He stepped down in a surprise move earlier this year.

“Thirteen years of doing the other stuff is enough,” Mr. Rufrano says.